Aircraft and other air vehicles oftentimes include a member of software parts, such as software programs. These software parts may perform a wide variety of functions upon execution. For example, some software parts facilitate the operation of the air vehicle including software programs that are utilized in navigation including navigation maps, propulsion, communications and the like, while other software parts support the passenger experience by at least partly controlling heating, ventilation and cooling operations, entertainment systems and the like. Of the software parts onboard an aircraft, many software parts are designed and provided by a vendor. The vendor may be the manufacturer of the air vehicle or a subcontractor or other supplier that supplies software parts to the manufacturer for integration into the air vehicle. In regards to an aircraft, the vendor may provide the software parts to an airline and the airline may, in turn, provision one or more of the aircraft in its fleet with the software parts.
It may be desirable in many instances to confirm the integrity of the software parts that are installed upon an air vehicle to insure that the air vehicle performs as intended. In this regard, it may be desirable to identify a software part that has been corrupted or otherwise modified while in transit from the vendor and/or the airline to the air vehicle. In addition to the corruption or modification of an otherwise authentic software part, it may also be desirable to identify any software parts that are simply not authorized, such as by not being provided by an authorized vendor and/or not being sanctioned or otherwise authorized by the airline.
The authenticity and integrity of some software parts has been maintained by storing the software parts on a physical media, such as a floppy disk, compact disk or the like, and then handling and transferring the physical media in a secure manner. In this regard, the physical media could be shipped in a secure manner, the media content could be electronically inspected and a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) could be performed by the equipment onboard the air vehicle to confirm its authenticity and integrity. However, many software parts are now distributed electronically such that the techniques for insuring authenticity and integrity that were employed for the handling and transfer of physical media are much less applicable.